2014 The Year in Review

I wrote, but never published a 2014 resolutions blog.  I just never found something that I was really happy with.  Since my 2010 New Year's Resolutions are still on my refrigerator and mostly unfinished, I decided to do a year in review post before I try to write this year's resolutions post.  A lot has happened this year, not all of it good, but I'm really happy with the place I am in right now.

I was originally going to post important events in chronological order, but the more I reviewed the year, the more it made sense to cover major topics rather than individual events.

Current Events

As I mentioned earlier, in many ways it was difficult year. Very real injustices threatened the peace and happiness of people I cared about.  My heart broke as I read story after story about racism, suicide, poverty, homelessness, sexism, and the inequalities of the current immigration system.  My heart broke again as I watched people I thought I knew say and do things that made the other side the enemy.  But in 2014, I also decided that I could no longer be quiet.  My personal blogs became much more about the issues that filled my new feed.  I still couldn't really talk about those things or take action like I wanted to, but by writing, I was no longer silent.  It was the first step in making a difference.

Blogging

I didn't write many blog posts this year, and my book and voice blogs were neglected, but the blog posts I did write were longer, more heartfelt, and I shared them with many more people.  I was also invited to join the Exploring Sainthood blog team where you can read a post from me about once a month.  It's been a little scary.  Writing my own blog is basically publishing my journal.  Writing for a group blog puts the pressure on.  It needs to be about something that others will want to read about.  It's a challenge, but one that I'm really looking forward to.  My next post goes up on Friday.  I think it is the best one so far. I hope you like it too.

Photography

There was pain this year, but there was also beauty.  In the spring I went a little nuts with all the flower pictures.  I seriously would just be driving down the street and pull over to take pictures of the flowers or trees that I saw.  You can see some of them here.  For the record, I have absolutely no qualifications as a photographer.  I just see pretty things and try to take decent pictures with my iPhone 3GS.  Don't laugh.

Reading

I haven't been a great reader this year (other than news, FB, and blogs), but I have read some amazing books.  You can read some reviews on my book blog. Not all the books I read this year were reviewed or even listed on the blog, but you can see a little of what I've been reading.  Over Winter Break, I finished reading Healing the Heart of Democracy by Parker J. Palmer.  I haven't blogged about it yet, but it is a must read.  I loved it.  The only thing I didn't love is that I read a library copy so I couldn't highlight things and write in the margins.  I finished reading Inferno by Dan Brown on the plane ride home, and just started Anne Lammott's Small Victories.  I hope to finish that today.  Other highly recommended books from this year are Making Music and Enriching Lives, Faith, The Good Heart:  A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus, and Crucible of Doubt. You'll also find these titles in the current reading pile:  The Private Voice Studio Handbook (new edition, plus I'd like to re-read the old edition and compare), the Tao Te Ching (several translations including this one), and various essays and poems.  Plus, I have 2 books waiting for me at the library and 3 more on order.  I'm definitely getting back to reading in 2015.

NaNoWriMo

I did participate in NaNoWriMo in November, but decided to do it as a rebel, which basically means I did something other than write one piece of fiction that was 50,000 or more.  For the last several years, I've had to do most of my writing on the weekends, but this year I knew that my first 3 weekends of the month were full of music and tai chi events.  I decided to count everything I wrote:  blogs, long Facebook posts, and continuing the story I've been working on for a couple of years now.  I did most of my 20,000 words over Thanksgiving Break.  I didn't make 50,000 word goal this year, but I moved the story forward and I did a lot of other writing. Someday, I'll actually finish these novels and publish them, but don't hold your breath.  There are details of the plot of the early books that I haven't quite figured out yet, but each year I live in that world, I learn more and the details come together more.  In fact, just last week, I learned that the number 8 represents rebirth, resurrection, or a new beginning. That ties perfectly into the part of Holly 2 (don't I have exciting titles) that I couldn't figure out before.

Lost Things

After a big event this fall at school, I discovered that my phone, my debit card, and my credit card were missing.  Nothing else was missing from my purse, but it seemed very strange that those 3 things had disappeared at the same time.  I'm famous for misplacing things, so I didn't panic right away. I looked at home.  I looked at school.  I looked in my car.  Then I panicked. The good news is that I got to meet the new police officer at the school when I went in to see if anyone had turned anything in.  He was very helpful and introduced me to Find My iPhone.  It didn't help me find it, because it showed that it was still at school, but I did learn that you can have your lost phone make a sound (which didn't work for me because the battery was dead), you can leave a message on the screen in case someone finds it (again, no good with a dead battery), and you can lock people out of the phone.  That was really helpful.  I also learned how to suspend my cell phone service, and I canceled those cards and requested new ones.  Then I found the phone and cards under the seat of my car.  I thought I had looked there, but apparently, I didn't feel just the right spot under the seat.  It was a good learning experience, but not one that I hope to repeat.

Other losses

June was a hard month.  In early June, feminist and questioning Mormons received a blow when Kate Kelly and John Dehlin release the information that they were facing church courts and possible excommunication. Coming, as it it did, on the heels of the Utah same-sex marriage nightmare, it hit me harder than I expected it to.  I recovered a little, only to be hurt again when Kate actually was excommunicated later in the month. Comments from members and from the church PR team hurt more than helped.  I decided I needed to step away for a little bit to let my wounds heal. I emailed my bishop about my decision and he wanted to meet with me to discuss it.  I agreed, and we set up a time.

Then I got the news that my friend Elizabeth Bossard had died suddenly.  I didn't really have the money to go to the funeral, but she was family.  I had to go.  And I needed the closure and the healing.  Going home for the funeral reminded me of the Power of One, that love knows no boundaries of time or space, and that those we disagree with at times can still be wonderful sources of strength.

Voice Teaching Stuff

Now that my two primary teachers and mentors (Elizabeth and Glenda) are gone, it's my turn to continue the legacy. I began to really own what I believe about the teaching of singing.  I'm certainly not a carbon copy of either of them, but I've taken the best things and made them my own.  I spend every summer planning and revising materials and becoming a better teacher.  I owe it to them.  I owe it to my students.  And I owe it to me.

One of the new things for my studio this year is the Practice Challenge.  Not many students have participate, and I haven't done as well at promoting it as I had hoped to, but I'm going to keep it, with some revisions for the future.

I'm also more involved in professional organizations.  I'm on the MN-NATS Music Theater auditions Committee and we ran our first online auditions in February.  I learned a lot and hopefully my students will be better prepared for this year.  I also offered the MMTA Voice Exams for the first year.  I only had one student participate, but he did level 3 and passed. Yay!  I love the MMTA education programs, but I'm not sure how well they fit the goals of most of my students.  It's still just a very small number that are participating.  I need to rethink it a little and decide if the benefits are worth the time and energy that I have to put into the organization as a volunteer.  I said no to another position this year, but continue as the co-chair of the Twin Cities Vocal and Instrumental Preliminary Contest.

I presented again at the MMTA convention in June 2014.  My session was on sight-reading, and I've been asked to do a modified version of it for a local association next month.  In preparation for the session, I learned how to use Finale and Power Point.  I've also been asked to repeat my "Tai Chi and Singing" session at the 2015 convention.  Plus, I get to give my Foundations of Singing workshop that I've only done a couple of times, but love.  I have a lot of planning and work to do on those in the next few months.

Tai Chi

This has been a big year for tai chi.  I've been a teaching assistant for my teacher for a few years now, but as her schedule expanded this fall, so did mine.  Other people who had planned to be teaching assistants were unable to do so, so I picked up an extra evening of class.  When classes resume in Feburary, I'll be the teaching assistant for classes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. That's a lot of tai chi.  She understands my limits because of my full time job and health, so I don't have to be to every class every week if it gets to be too much.  I appreciate that.  I'm just going to see what happens.  If I feel well enough to do tai chi, the classes actually help me feel even better.  They also help me deal with stress in more positive ways.

I received a scholarship to attend Dr. Lam's weeklong workshop in June 2015.  I'm also going the weekend before for another teacher training workshop.  It will be wonderful, but exhausting, so I'm planning my next several months very carefully so that I can be in the best shape possible, mentally and physically.

I've also started doing tai chi workshops and demonstrations.  I was invited to talk to a stroke support group earlier this year and had a great time with them.  As I mentioned earlier, I've been invited to give my "Tai Chi and Singing" workshop again at MMTA Convention.  Plus I'll be doing a Seated Tai Chi break-out session at our World Tai Chi and Qigong Day Celebration.  WTCQD is celebrated all over the world, and I'll be at the event organized by local Tai Chi for Health teachers.  Everyone is invited, so watch my Facebook page for announcements about the event.

I'm working towards becoming a senior trainer for the Tai Chi for Health Institute.  There are still several requirements to fill, but by the end of 2015, I should be much closer to this goal.  In the meantime, there is a lot of work to be done.  I start teaching my own Beginning Sun Style Tai Chi class  in January, and in June, I hope to bring a brand new program to the Twin Cities:  Tai Chi for Rehabilitation.  As a senior trainer wanna be, I also get to help with organizing our World Tai Chi and Qigong Day in April, Tai Chi for Arthritis trainings and updates in May and November, monthly Skill Builder workshops, summer depth workshops, and a possible repeat of our fundraiser for Apparent Plan.  Our November fundraiser was a big success and a great community builder and we're hoping to continue with that.  I was the Bake Sale chair and now that I've already discovered all the possible problems, it should be easier next time around.

Health

Some thing related to health have been pretty good this year.  Although I've gone off it a few times, I'm finding that a gluten-free diet helps me to feel a lot better.  Lots of tai chi classes, plus workouts at the gym a couple of times a week help keep me moving and prevent lymph congestion (which can be quite painful).  I'm not doing the detox referred to in this article, but the rest of the information is good if you want to know more about what I deal with. Reducing stress and gluten, and exercising more has made my life much better.  I know that I also am sensitive to chocolate, sugar, and milk.  I had reduced my usage of all of those quite a bit, but then the stress and grief hit and I coped by eating.  Ben and Jerry's made a lot of money from my purchases this year.

I got sick in August and didn't really get better until early November.  Part of it was asthma related, but it was also stress and anxiety related.  In total I had one Emergency Room visit, and four doctor appointments.  Luckily, the really expensive meds helped me meet my deductible, so most of the doctor visits were covered by my insurance and I only had to pay 20%.  Still, seeing the amounts due on my doctor bills was enough to increase my anxiety level.  We increased one of my current meds that helps with anxiety, I'm doing more tai chi and deep breathing exercises, I'm now taking Zantac as needed for stomach acid issues, and I have a few Ativan for emergencies (but those emergencies can only be when I don't have to drive or form coherent thoughts.)  I'm doing better and I have my healthy coping strategies ready for whatever 2015 brings my way.

Church and Spirituality

Pope Francis gave me many moments of holy envy this year.  What an incredible human being!

I'm picking up little bits and pieces of truth and light from many different sources. And I'm seeing beauty again, even with all the turmoil in the world.  

As I mentioned here and here, I've been attending Unity Church-Unitarian since September.  For the first time in as long as I can remember, I actually want to go to church.  The words inspire and challenge me.  The music is amazing.  The people and the architecture make me feel safe and warm.  

I don't know if this is a long-term change for me or not.  I've decided to attend until summer and see where it leads me.  Right now, I know that it is where I need to be.  The experiences I'm having there are helping me to reframe a lot of issues.  I'm a better person after services there, and the world is a more beautiful place.  I've been back to my LDS ward a few time, and I may go a few more over the next several months.  We'll see what happens.  The important thing is that I'm not trying to hide anything anymore.  I think that was part of what caused the anxiety and health issues.  I wasn't really hiding or denying anything, but I  didn't know how to talk to people about where I was and what I was experiencing.  Even with my blogs, there was this fog I couldn't get through because I didn't want to hurt anyone.  But I was hurting me.

Moving Forward

This year, I shared a lot of music, poetry, and other words that inspired me. Now as the year ends, I think these best sum up where I am and where I am headed.

The words are fairly easy to understand in the video, but if you want to read them, you can find them here.



Invocation / Benediction by Joanna Brooks

Father, Mother, help me piece together the contradictions of my life:
White cotton, red satin, brown polka dot; torn Sunday dress, Navajo rug, frayed baby blanket.
Make me insistent on every lonely shred, willing to sacrifice no one.
Where there is no pattern, God, give me courage to organize a fearsome beauty.
Where there is unraveling, let me draw broad blanket stitches of sturdy blue yarn. 

Mother, Father, give me vision.
Give me strength to work hours past my daughters’ bedtime.
Give me an incandescent all-night garage with a quorum of thimble-thumbed
grandmothers sitting on borrowed folding chairs.
We will gather all the lost scraps and stitch them together;
A quilt big enough to warm all our generations: all the lost, found, rich, poor, good, bad, in, out, old, new, country, city, dusty, shiny ones;
A quilt big enough to cover all the alfalfa fields in the Great Basin.
Bigger. We are piecing together a quilt with no edges.
God, make me brave enough to love my people.
How wonderful it is to have a people to love.

Manifesto: Let us be Women who Love 

Let us be women who Love. Let us be women willing to lay down our sword words, our sharp looks, our ignorant silence and towering stance and fill the earth now with extravagant Love.

Let us be women who Love.Let us be women who make room.
Let us be women who open our arms and invite others into an honest, spacious, glorious embrace.

Let us be women who carry each other.Let us be women who give from what we have.
Let us be women who leap to do the difficult things, the unexpected things and the necessary things.
Let us be women who live for Peace.
Let us be women who breathe Hope.
Let us be women who create beauty.
Let us be women who Love.

Let us be a sanctuary where God may dwell.Let us be a garden for tender souls.
Let us be a table where others may feast on the goodness of God.
Let us be a womb for Life to grow.
Let us be women who Love.

Let us rise to the questions of our time.Let us speak to the injustices in our world.
Let us move the mountains of fear and intimidation.
Let us shout down the walls that separate and divide.
Let us fill the earth with the fragrance of Love.
Let us be women who Love.
Let us listen for those who have been silenced.Let us honour those who have been devalued.
Let us say, Enough! with abuse, abandonment, diminishing and hiding.
Let us not rest until every person is free and equal.
Let us be women who Love.
Let us be women who are savvy, smart and wise.Let us be women who shine with the light of God in us.
Let us be women who take courage and sing the song in our hearts.
Let us be women who say, Yes to the beautiful, unique purpose seeded in our souls.
Let us be women who call out the song in another’s heart.
Let us be women who teach our children to do the same.
Let us be women who Love.
Let us be women who Love, in spite of fear.Let us be women who Love, in spite of our stories.
Let us be women who Love loudly, beautifully, Divinely.
Let us be women who Love.

And lastly, this from Joyce DiDonato's Commencement Address at Juilliard:

The world needs you. Now, the world may not exactly realize it, but wow, does it need you. It is yearning, starving, dying for you and your healing offer of service through your Art. We need you to help us understand that which is bigger than ourselves, so that we can stop feeling so small, so isolated, so helpless that, in our fear, we stop contributing that which is unique to us: that distinct, rare, individual quality which the world is desperately crying out for and eagerly awaiting. We need you to remind us what unbridled, unfiltered, childlike exuberance feels like, so we remember, without apology or disclaimer, to laugh, to play, to FLY and to stop taking EVERYTHING so damn seriously. We need you to remind us what empathy is by taking us deep into the hearts of those who are, God forbid, different than us – so that we can recapture the hope of not only living in peace with each other, but THRIVING together in a vibrant way where each of us grows in wonder and joy. We need you to make us feel an integral PART of a shared existence through the communal, universal, forgiving language of music, of dance, of poetry and Art – so that we never lose sight of the fact that we are all in this together and that we are all deserving of a life that overflows with immense possibility, improbable beauty and relentless truth.

Happy New Year!  2015 is going to be a great one!

NaNoWriMo 2013??????

I'm trying to make up my mind about whether or not I can really do NaNoWriMo this year. If I decide I can, do I push for a win (50,000 words) or just be happy that I took the time to write anything?

Reasons that NaNoWriMo will be hard this year

1. I have full time job teaching voice lessons.  I enjoy them, but they require a lot of energy and mental focus.  
2. 4 hours of tai chi classes and a one hour qigong class every week.  Sometimes I'm the teacher, sometimes the teaching assistant, and sometimes, I get to just be a student.  
3. Working with my personal trainer twice a week.  
4. NATS Student Adjudications the first weekend of the month will suck up most of my writing time for that weekend.  
5. An extra qigong workshop on the second Saturday means that it is pretty much a tai chi/qigong day and I won't get much writing in.  
6. Third weekend of the month starts with a Thursday workshop I'm giving.  Then on Friday I've committed to  go to a student's performance.  Saturday is an update for my tai chi certification.  

Summary, my days and evenings during the week are already pretty full.  I usually write a lot on the weekends, but this year, I have more weekend commitments.  

Reasons I should do it anyway and things that may actually help me

1. Writing feeds my soul.  
2. I actually already have a vague idea about what I want to write.  World building and character development for the main characters is already done since I've already written about this world and characters before.  
3. I want to discover who Jenna becomes after the amazing, transformative experiences she was having when I wrote about her last.  
4. I learn through writing.  I figure things out through writing.  I process and understand through writing, and I have a lot to process and understand right now.  
5. No school November 8.  Extra writing time!
6. I don't work at all the last 4 days of the month.  With the exception of my workout, I can pretty much write non-stop.  I've done 10,000 word days before, so I could use these days to make up for all the other times I can't write.  

I guess the real question is, "How can I not take this time to write?"  I have to do this.  I don't know if I'll win (it won't be the end of the world if I don't) but I need to try.  

I just found this awesome quote that totally explains why:

Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
~Thomas Merton

Growth, Change, and Transformation

Never pray for humility.  It pretty much guarantees that you will have many experiences that will humble you.  I've also learned that daring the Water Snake to bring it on, might also be just a bit of a mistake.  I was ready for change, and I'm embracing the transformation, but there has been a lot of it to deal with.

We are currently in the Chinese Year of the Water Snake.  I'm not a real fan of snakes, but as I explored the symbolism, I found things I loved and decided to embrace this year, the snake, and all it would bring into my life.  I thought I was ready for this.  I feel like I've handled the change well, but I never expected the growth and transformation to come in the ways that it has.

With the exception of a short, vague post in mid-April, I haven't had the time, energy, and focus to blog.  Here's a quick review (not necessarily in chronological order) of all that has happened in my life so far during the year of the Water Snake, (in addition to the regular stuff like voice lessons and tai chi classes).

• Russ Smiley died.  He was my tai chi teacher's mentor and a leader in the tai chi community.  I had my TCA training with him and was hoping to study more with him in the future.  
• My cousin was assaulted.  He survived, but is now dealing with the effects of a Traumatic Brain Injury.  His recovery will be a very long process.  
• Glenda Maurice, my voice teacher and mentor, died.  
• Barbara Kierig died.  We were not particularly close, but she was a part of the voice community and will be missed.  
• My massage therapist, who has been the most important member of my health care team, found out that she can no longer use the space she has been using.  I still don't know if she has found any other options, or if she will be retiring.  
• I spent two and a half amazing days studying Soaring Crane Qi Gong with Ralph Dehner.  The insights and nuggets of wisdom I picked up during the breaks and discussion time were as transforming for me as the actual work we did.  
• I adjudicated at two different Solo and Ensemble Contests and was able to share some of the newest things that I am incorporating in my own teaching.  
• I took my TCA 2 certification class and was able to work with Ileana Ferrier and Linda Arksey.  I hope to have opportunities to study with both of them in the future.  
• Because of changes in my teacher's schedule, I will be doing more substituting for tai chi classes starting in the fall, and I'll be a teaching assistant for all the classes as well.  
• We celebrated another World Tai Chi and Qigong Day.  Each year when I participate, I am reminded of how much I love this tai chi community.  They are my people.  I have found my home.  
• My writing is calling to me again.  And it can't wait until NaNoWriMo.  So much of this story  parallels my own journey.  I couldn't revise it 10 years ago because I didn't know the things I needed to know to complete the story.  Each year I learn more and the pieces fall into place.  There are stories begging to be written, and the old stories are asking for revision and editing and maybe even sharing them with the world.  I'm currently re-reading the 10 related novels and short stories and the real work will begin shortly.  
• I'm presenting 2 different sessions at the MMTA Convention in June.  The first one is technology.  (Don't laugh.)  Actually, I'm leading a discussion about Music Teacher's Helper.  And I asked that it be very clear about that in the description.  I'm not spouting knowledge.  I'm facilitating sharing.  The second sessions is about using tai chi and qigong in the voice studio and I'm super excited about that one.  My study of tai chi and qigong has changed the way I teach and work with my voice students.  

All this since February.  What more will be revealed this year?  I don't really know, but for once, I feel confident that I am growing and transforming in just that ways that I need to and that I can handle whatever happens.  

Another adventure over, at least for now

Today is the first weekend after NaNoWriMo and to be honest I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I woke up this morning and wanted to go right to the computer to start writing as I did every non-work day in November. There are lots of things I should be doing, but I find myself wanting to write. The story is done, but there are places that I could go back and fill in a little more, especially near the end where I was just trying to get to the end of the story. But part of me also needs to be away from this story for awhile.

So, that was all a bunch of rambling nonsense about moving on after NaNo. NaNo teaches you to write, to just get the words out and not worry about editing. Obviously, I'm still stuck in that mode.

Here is some information about what I accomplished during November.

This shows my writing progress for the month of November. Yellow is a little higher than the daily goal, and orange is a little lower. Reds are exceptionally bad days and greens are exceptionally good days. As you can tell, I write best(or most prolifically) when I have big chunks of time. Although they encourage you to shoot for 1667 words a day and do develop a habit of writing daily, it just doesn't work for me. I achieved my goal, but did it in a way that works with my ADD brain. You can fight it, or you can embrace it.

To see a graph of my daily word count totals, you can go here.

I got off to a rough start this year, and there is a lot of crap that needs to be cut, but I'm very proud of what I was able to accomplish this year. I actually finished the story and I wrote 26,600 more words than I needed for an official win.

Now, I'm going to work on catching up on all the things I put off because writing was important or fun, or both.

NaNoWriMo

I had something brilliant that I was going to share here, but by the time I finished the other stuff and got to this, I had totally forgotten what wonders I had to share today.

Although NaNoWriMo doesn't officially start until Nov. 1, gearing up for it starts this week. On Wednesday and Friday I have writers' group/write-ins where we will do some discussing of our November plans and/or working on outlines, plot, etc. Thursday is the big kick off party.

If you don't hear from me for awhile, it's because I'm lost in the land of noveling. Hopefully, I'll remember to post a few updates here. If you are interested in knowing what all of this is about, or interested in joining the craziness, go to www.nanowrimo.org.

By the way, since the exercise journals were incredibly boring, I've decided to hide my exercise reports in other blogs. Just so you know, there has only been one day that I haven't done any exercise. The bad thing was, I didn't even realize it until the next morning.

Happy Noveling!

Plans for November

Yes, this is about what I am doing in November. You might ask why I'm telling you now. I'm telling you because I want you to work it into your November plans.

For the last several years I have been a participant in National Novel Writing Month. If you go to nanowrimo.org and click on "About" you can learn more about it. Basically, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. One of the things I love about it is that because you have to write so quickly, you have to give up perfection and just get the words written. It's very freeing for me to turn off the internal editors and just write for fun. Yes, a lot of it is garbage, but occassionally you get in the zone and come up with something really good.

So, what are you doing in November? Do you want to join the craziness?